China may have won the virus, but not the hearts of people in the West

I will begin by citing Sun Tzu: Therefore, one who is skilled in warfare principles subdues the enemy without doing battle, takes the enemy’s walled city without attacking, and overthrows the enemy quickly, without protracted warfare. His aim must be to take All-Under-Heaven intact. Therefore, weapons will not be blunted, and gains will be intact. These are the principles of planning attacks.

I am certain Beijing has employed this approach for the last twenty years and it has been quite successful. With this I mean that up until the beginning of the pandemic the image of China in the West was actually a positive one. Few citizens in Poland, for instance, or any other European country believed China to be a threat to global peace, despite an opposite opinion being held by foreign policy experts, political experts, journalists, diplomats, and intelligence services. All of them agree that Beijing’s ambitions do not stop at being the world’s factory, but instead focus on becoming an influential superpower. China’s ambitions and political games manifest in the militarization of its surrounding region and the growing of mysterious islands in order to directly or indirectly subdue its neighboring nations. This was evident in the disunity among EU member governments in a disinformation review that had apparently “spared” China.

In Poland, Beijing has invested tens of billions of dollars, and in interviews representatives of the Chinese embassy constantly stress how important economic cooperation between both nations is, along with attempts to shift blame from itself for the outbreak of the pandemic and painting China as a savior, including the savior of Europe.

In a report, an intelligence alliance comprised of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, known as the “Five Eyes”, warn of China’s attempts to cover-up information concerning experiments with the coronavirus in Wuhan in the initial stage of the outbreak.

China deliberately withheld information or destroyed evidence about the beginning of the outbreak and the fact that the virus is easily transmitted between humans and extremely contagious.

I already wrote that EU member states had different reactions to China’s soft power during the pandemic, while Washington maintained the role of the global policeman with its odious leader Donald Trump. We can forgive his hotheadedness and sometimes completely wrong statements that contradict the position of the US, but Trump’s eagerness to blame China for causing the COVID-19 outbreak is justified, and we cannot forget that. Almost for the entire duration of January, China did not inform the World Health Organization (WHO) about the new coronavirus and how contagious it is, and this is an undisputable fact. Additionally, China did not admit that the virus is something serious, at the same time increasing the imports of medical goods and decreasing their exports. The government wanted to hide this by denying any export restrictions that have been imposed, as well as delaying or completely withholding official trade data.

Currently, China-US relations are at their lowest point in decades, with growing distrust and tensions between both countries, US accusing China of unfair trade and disputes over Hong Kong, Taiwan and territories in the South China Sea. This lowest point in their relations can be easily explained. Beijing is attempting to justify itself by saying that it had done everything openly, while Washington is providing new indirect evidence that China is, in fact, lying. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already condemned the US for attempting to shift blame to China for the outbreak of the virus and has urged everyone to stick to the facts. In reality, however, the facts are well known – Beijing allowed the disease to spread outside of its borders. Some European nations have tested blood samples of previously deceased persons and found that the first victims of COVID-19 were already in December of the last year.

Now, Chinese propaganda outlets China Daily, People’s Daily and Global Times report that China is able to assist other nations in fighting the virus because China itself has only a couple daily cases of infection, and even those are imported by foreigners. The truth is that these are Chinese citizens who have caught the virus in some hotspots and are now returning to their homeland. One thing is clear – Disneyland in Shanghai will open this week because everything is just fine.

Beijing’s attempts to silence scientists, journalists and members of the public along with it spreading disinformation has furthered the threat posed by the current health crisis. At this point, China’s image in the eyes of Western people has become something completely different (people don’t think China is cheap and good; all they think of when they hear “China” is the new virus). It will take some time for this to change. The current Chinese leaders have to reread Sun Tzu’s The Art of War – Tibet is not forgotten, and Taiwan too has friends!

What’s extraordinary to me is that although this pandemic started only four months ago, media commentators either do not remember or cant be bothered checking the timeline. If they did, and it is readily available, they would see there is no time for China to have delayed or covered-up anything. Malign agencies in the west have described uncertainties as delays, and the disciplining of an over eager doctor as a cover-up. If it was a cover-up, it lasted no more than 48 hours. Neither is it China’s fault that Europeans cant be bothered to tell the difference between the central… Read more »

China’s Crypto Currency, major threat to Dollar Hegemony — By Business Reporting Desk -May 8, 2020 — China recently took a decisive step that undermined the global dominance of the dollar by introducing its digital sovereign currency. Coronavirus Catalyst In April 2020, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) stepped up the development of an electronic yuan, slated to become one of the first digital currencies created and managed by the government rather than a private corporation. At the same time, the US Americans and their allies, believing that China is actively gunning to become the global leader against this background,… Read more »

Another 3rd rate bought and paid for media hack spewing out all the usual bargain basement neocon crap, scapegoating China for the criminal incompetence, crass ineptitude, gross complacency and inadequacy of Trump and all his no hoper cronies, whose last contribution to dealing with the virus was to tell people to inject themselves with disinfectant. All standard fare for The Duran. China is apparently “a threat to global peace”, unlike the US and its satellites, which have invaded and destroyed Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia amongst other countries, waging simultaneous wars in countries too numerous to list here, overthrowing and… Read more »

And far from withholding medical supplies from other countries, China sent medical teams and equipment to 89 countries, from the poorest in the world to one of the richest, hard hit northern Italy. Even before the virus had been brought under control back home. Poor, tiny, sanctioned Cuba did the same in 59 countries. Russia was active globally on a smaller scale, even though it was facing an imminent outbreak domestically. How does this compare with the tawdry record of the US and other western countries? They had several precious weeks to learn from the experiences of China and Italy,… Read more »

No strategist in history has yet found a way to “gain everything under Heaven” and retain it forever. A salutary warning as the US and China move towards war: everything can be lost.https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/

The title of this text sounds a tad silly, because the Chinese are not keen on “winning hearts of the West”. Those who know Chinese mentality know that they are pragmatic people. They do not want hearts, they want money. These days, China is earning a lot of money from trade with Europe via the Silk Road transport:

Shippers turn to Belt & Road Trains to Beat Coronavirus Shutdowns — By Business Reporting Desk -May 11, 2020 — With Air & Sea Freight Services disrupted, Europe-Asia Rail lines Shine With few international flights operating and many cargo ships knocked off course by the coronavirus pandemic, businesses sending goods between Asia and Europe have turned to trains linked to China’s Belt & Road Project. “These days, many European customers are exploring rail freight on the New Silk Road as an alternative and attractive transport mode,” Tim Scharwath, Chief Executive of Global Freight Forwarding at German logistics operator DHL, said.… Read more »

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Toyota Corolla Virus

June 5, 2020

Quoting Tsung Zu is quite interesting. We now are learning more and more about Conjob-19. It is less dangerous than the flu. So did the Chinese fake how bad this virus really is? Were BI weapons ideas leaked so alt news sources could pick them up? Gates foundation funding so many aspects of vaccine production etc. CGTN now shows a lot of videos about how they have recovered and how they helping other countries. This article might actually be closer to the truth than people think but for completely different reasons.